5K resolution, Quad-SLI and 10-core support?

[Tes96]

1) Skylake architecture is out. (Icelake will be out in a few years). Intel has the i7-6950X 10-core with 25MB L3 Cache (20 threads) available now. Undoubtedly, computers will be adding more and more processors. Will OpenMW engine be able to take advantage of multiple cores? Single thread is just horrendous for a game these days when computers have so much more unused power.


2) Will OpenMW be able to utilize Quad-SLI video card support? i.e. 4x GeForce GTX 1080 series


3) Given you have a monster rig, will OpenMW be able to handle 5K resolution monitors? They're a pain in the ass right now but in years to come, they'll slowly become the norm, especially for gaming. Right now they're mostly good for photo/video editing.


4) Will OpenMW be able to utilize lots of RAM? i.e. users who have 128GB of DDR4 3000MHz RAM. It would be great to see it used for pre-loading screens to eradicate wait times between cells, especially exterior.

[jirka642]

4) Will OpenMW be able to utilize lots of RAM? i.e. users who have 128GB of DDR4 3000MHz RAM. It would be great to see it used for pre-loading screens to eradicate wait times between cells, especially exterior.

OpenMW already has cell pre-loading.

[lysol]

And as far as I know, it pre-loads cells in its own thread too. So it is already multi-threaded AFAIK.

[Capostrophic]

There are also main, sound streaming and graphics threads, but in general multi-threading is somewhat limited.

[jvoisin]

Of course, it would be great to also think about post-quantum computers support.

More seriously :

• No one has such config
• If you have 128Gb of RAM, you could just put your whole operating system in it
• What are you going to do with 10 cores ? OpenMW runs already super-fine on dual ones. What kind of improvements are you expecting from "multi-treahding" ?
• Same question for you bitcoin miner cluster : what do you want to do with it ? You can already play OpenMW with a simple Intel HD4000. What kind of improvements are you expecting ?
• No one has 5K monitors yet, and a small number of people has a 4K one, on which I'm sure OpenMW runs smoothly too.

I completely fail to see the point of your questions.

[Hallfaer]

I can confirm that OpenMW runs splendidly on 4K, GTX960 and 4 cores.
Instead of asking such silly questions, please provide artwork for OpenMW that actually:

• Is a significant improvement to the graphical quality of Morrowind in a meaningful way.
• Actually stresses the system in a meaningful way. (Making a mesh with a zillion polygons that could be replaced by one good normal bake is nonsensical).

If there is seriously going to be a need for highly optimised usage of such hypothetical systems, somewhere in the future, I'm not sure that functionality should be provided by an open source project that was originally started to replace a 2002 game engine.

[aesylwinn]

There are also main, sound streaming and graphics threads, but in general multi-threading is somewhat limited.

That's quite a bit for a game, actually. Other than collision detection and possibly AI routines, I don't know what else you would multi-thread.

1) Multi-threading is not the ultimate solution. Quite simply, there are problems that benefit from multi-threading, and there are problems that don't. As mentioned previously, OpenMW already uses multiple threads, so what you really should be asking is how well the engine scales with CPU core count. Here's my attempt to give an analogy (it's not perfect):

Student Rick is in an advanced math course with nine other students. Their teacher, Professor Roll, is quite eccentric and has locked them in a windowless, lead lined room. Professor Roll has assigned the class five proofs that must be finished before they can leave. Being idealistic college students, Rick's class decides that everyone must contribute the same amount of time to writing the proofs. Being prideful college students, the class decides that no one should have to do the same job that another has done, because that would be a waste of their time. With these guidelines, the class comes up with a plan to complete the proofs. Five students begin the proofs. After two minutes of scribbling and the occasional screaming of "Eureka" they hand their sheet of paper to the other five students. It takes another minute of boisterous communication to explain their illegible or non-existent work. This process is repeated until all of the proofs are completed. It takes them 90 minutes. Professor Roll unlocks the door, and assures them that he was never going to run around and desert them in the lead lined room.

At lunch the next day, Rick complains to his friend, Turner, about how long it took to solve the five proofs. Turner gives him a funny look and mentions that it only took his class 30 minutes. They had two students do each proof and checked their work at the end. When it looks like Rick is about to burst into tears, Turner assures Rick he would never tell a lie and hurt him.

Each game tick/update is a fixed size problem. Every thread used increases memory usage and requires synchronization/communication between threads. Eventually, all fixed size problems have a turning point where adding more threads actually starts to degrade performance. What's more, there is a diminishing return in performance and added complexity that makes future development more difficult. I would suspect that OpenMW may scale well up to 4 cores. A 10 core CPU isn't meant to be used for gaming, it's meant for compiling or other computationally heavy tasks that scale well to multiple cores.

2) I thought I heard somewhere that NVidia wasn't supporting that. Anyway, that all depends on whether or not OpenSceneGraph supports it.

3) I don't believe there is a cap on resolution in the game, though I don't have a monitor to test that on.

[Tes96]

Of course, it would be great to also think about post-quantum computers support.

More seriously :

• No one has such config
• If you have 128Gb of RAM, you could just put your whole operating system in it
• What are you going to do with 10 cores ? OpenMW runs already super-fine on dual ones. What kind of improvements are you expecting from "multi-treahding" ?
• Same question for you bitcoin miner cluster : what do you want to do with it ? You can already play OpenMW with a simple Intel HD4000. What kind of improvements are you expecting ?
• No one has 5K monitors yet, and a small number of people has a 4K one, on which I'm sure OpenMW runs smoothly too.

I completely fail to see the point of your questions.

You may want to double check your sources, ap0. You can get a computer with those exact specifications I listed right here.
And you can buy a 5K monitor here. Don't be too quick to make assumptions before researching. People who make decent money do indeed buy these things.

I'll have a rig better than that in a few years, just not right now.
Currently, I have a good gaming MSI laptop with GTX 970m card. (Not nearly the same as regular GTX 970 obviously). But with MGE XE (no shaders at all) at 250 exterior cell view distance with TR, P:C and SHOTN loaded, I get about 0.5 frames per second. With OpenMW, it's almost as bad and that's with normal view distance. Although I was using v0.37 or 0.38 at the time. Unless v0.39 dramatically improved upon that.

The point of my questions was, will I be able to play with 60+ frames per second with Morrowind Comes Alive, Tamriel Rebuilt, Province:Cyrodiil, Skyrim:Home of the Nords with the full graphic features OpenMW provides (assuming v1.0 is on par with MGE XE or better)? Try out the province mods with 250 cells loaded. It brings a lot of machines to their knees, especially The Reach wilderness region near Karthwasten in SHOTN; very brutal. If OpenMW can render all that with at least 50-60 FPS, provided the player has a beefy modern rig, then splendid, that's what I'm looking for.

[lysol]

@Aesylwinn: HAHA, post of the year. Very well explained with a hilarious touch.

[ezze]

I still find funny that after a decade of listing the monitors' resolution with the vertical size they started with horizontal one because is BIGGER. 4k! 5k! So much more than 1080p!